Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Women's History

A statue of the people present at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention can be seen at the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls.

Women Who Shaped History

Five Things to Know About the Declaration of Sentiments

From seating to suffrage, here’s why the document is relevant today

Sarah Josepha Hale was the 19th century's answer to Oprah.

Cool Finds

Five Fascinating Details About the Media Mogul Who May Have Written ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’

Everywhere that Sarah Josepha Hale went, success was sure to go

Frances Green, Margaret (Peg) Kirchner, Ann Waldner and Blanche Osborn leaving their plane, "Pistol Packin' Mama," at the four-engine school at Lockbourne AAF, Ohio, during WASP ferry training.

Trending Today

Female WWII Pilots Can Now Be Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Seventy-five years later, WASPs have won one last battle

Blair's Snow White Hair Beautifier

Old Cosmetics Made New Again Through the Art of Digitization

Arsenic Complexion Wafers? A whole new world of yesteryear cosmetics just got a refresh

A portrait photograph of Victoria Woodhull.

Cool Finds

Victoria Woodhull Ran for President Before Women Had the Right to Vote

Her 1872 campaign platform focused on women’s rights and sexual freedom

Sisters Emilia Ponzoni, Regina Colombo, Concetta Finardi and Luigia Panceri mapped the positions and brightness of 481,215 stars.

Cool Finds

These Little-Known Nuns Helped Map the Stars

A century later, the identities of women who mapped over 481,000 stars are finally known

Mary Kies' patented technique wove silk and straw together to make fetching bonnets like this 1815 specimen.

Cool Finds

Meet Mary Kies, America’s First Woman to Become a Patent Holder

Brains plus bonnets equal a historic first

The women "computers" pose for a group photo in 1953.

Women in Science

NASA’s ‘Rocket Girls’ Are No Longer Forgotten History

Thanks to a new book, these female pioneers who helped the U.S. win the space race are finally getting their due

The newly named Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument was ground zero for women's rights during the 20th century.

Trending Today

The U.S. Finally Has a National Monument That Honors Women’s History

144 Constitution Avenue is now one of the women’s movement’s most significant sites

From the desk of Susan B. Anthony, this inkstand was used  by the women's rights advocate to produce the articles she wrote for her newspaper The Revolution.

Women Who Shaped History

For Susan B. Anthony, Getting Support for Her ‘Revolution’ Meant Taking on an Unusual Ally

Suffragists Anthony and Cady Stanton found common cause in a wealthy man named George Francis Train who helped to fund their newspaper

Maria Goeppert Mayer, co-winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on nuclear shell structures. She is just one of hundreds of women added to Wikipedia by the Wikiproject Women Scientists

Cool Finds

How a College Student Led the WikiProject Women Scientists

Emily Temple-Wood’s Women Scientist project is writing female researchers back into the conversation

Mary Louise & the Liberty Girls

The Secret History of the Girl Detective

Long before Nancy Drew, avid readers picked up tales of young women solving mysteries

The Eleanor Roosevelt Monument in Riverside Park, New York, was dedicated at 72nd Street on October 5, 1996.

Cool Finds

It’s Way Too Hard to Find Statues of Notable Women in the U.S.

Only a handful of the country’s sculptures honor women

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, circa 1787.

Why Elizabeth Hamilton Is Deserving of a Musical of Her Own

How the founding father’s wife kept their love alive in the face of tragedy

Liliya Lifánova, Anatomy is Destiny (live performance at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis), 2012.

Cool Finds

Board of Sexism in Chess? Check Out These New Exhibitions

The World Chess Hall of Fame is showcasing the power of its women

Hospital Apprentices second class Ruth C. Isaacs, Katherine Horton and Inez Patterson (left to right) were the first black WAVES to enter the Hospital Corps School at National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, MD. Photographed March 2, 1945.

Cool Finds

Photographs Document Some of the First Black Women to Serve With the U.S. Navy

Black women were not allowed to join WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) until 1944

A spread in LIFE magazine highlights these women football players.

The Forgotten History of Women’s Football

Several women’s football leagues formed during the 20th century—one from the 1930s even became a national sensation—but they’re barely remembered today

Cool Finds

44 Years Ago, Shirley Chisholm Became the First Black Woman to Run For President

Chisholm saw her campaign as a necessary “catalyst for change”

Half of NASA's astronaut class of 2013 are women.

Cool Finds

Half of NASA’s Newest Astronaut Class Are Women

38 years after NASA hired its first female astronauts, four women are training to go to Mars

Suffragettes form a part of Emily Davison's funeral procession through London. She was a fellow campaigner who was trampled to death when, as a protest gesture, she tried to catch the reins of King George V's horse as it ran in the 1913 Epsom Derby.

Women Who Shaped History

The True History of Suffragette

Emily Wilding Davison was a tireless and ingenious activist for the cause of women’s suffrage in Britain

Page 47 of 53